Junicode ("Junius-Unicode") is a free (

SIL Open Font License The SIL Open Font License (or OFL in short) is one of the major open font licenses, which allows embedding, or "bundling", of the font in commercially sold products. OFL is a free and open source license. It was created by SIL Internationa ...

) old-style serif

typeface A typeface (or font family) is the design of lettering that can include variations in size, weight (e.g. bold), slope (e.g. italic), width (e.g. condensed), and so on. Each of these variations of the typeface is a font. There are thousands ...

developed by Peter S. Baker of the

University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the university is ranked among the top academic institutions in the United States, with College admission ...

. The design is based on a 17th-century typeface used in

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the Un ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

. Junicode contains many special characters and

ligatures Ligature may refer to: * Ligature (medicine), a piece of suture used to shut off a blood vessel or other anatomical structure ** Ligature (orthodontic), used in dentistry * Ligature (music), an element of musical notation used especially in the me ...

for

medievalist The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , ''asteriskos'', "little star", is a typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a heraldic star. Computer scientists and mathematicians often vo ...

s, along with numerous other

Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, ...

glyphs. The font has

OpenType OpenType is a format for scalable computer fonts. It was built on its predecessor TrueType, retaining TrueType's basic structure and adding many intricate data structures for prescribing typographic behavior. OpenType is a registered trademark ...

features for advanced

typesetting Typesetting is the composition of text by means of arranging physical ''type'' (or ''sort'') in mechanical systems or '' glyphs'' in digital systems representing '' characters'' (letters and other symbols).Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random ...

and includes true

small caps In typography, small caps (short for "small capitals") are characters typeset with glyphs that resemble uppercase letters (capitals) but reduced in height and weight close to the surrounding lowercase letters or text figures. This is technica ...

. The most recent revision of Junicode is 1.002, released on 25 June 2018.

Design

The designs of the Junicode roman characters are based on a 17th-century typeface design used at the

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print book ...

, also known as Clarendon Press. Peter Baker based the Junicode roman design on those used in George Hickes' ''Linguarum Vett. Septentrionalium Thesaurus'' (1703–1705), naming the typeface Junicode ("Junius Unicode") after Franciscus Junius, who had commissioned the original typeface used for the Anglo-Saxon texts in that volume, "Pica Saxon". The designs represent an intermediate stage between earlier 16th century typefaces (such as

Garamond Garamond is a group of many serif typefaces, named for sixteenth-century Parisian engraver Claude Garamond, generally spelled as Garamont in his lifetime. Garamond-style typefaces are popular and particularly often used for book printing and ...

) and later 18th century typefaces (such as

Caslon Caslon is the name given to serif typefaces designed by William Caslon I (c. 1692–1766) in London, or inspired by his work. Caslon worked as an engraver of punches, the masters used to stamp the moulds or matrices used to cast metal ...

). The Junicode roman character design shares a number of features with these earlier and later typefaces. Junicode has an individual

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

typeface, Foulis Greek. The design is a traditional revival as well. It is based on the Greek Double Pica cut by Alexander Wilson (c. 1714–1786), a Scottish

doctor Doctor or The Doctor may refer to: Personal titles * Doctor (title), the holder of an accredited academic degree * A medical practitioner, including: ** Physician ** Surgeon ** Dentist ** Veterinary physician ** Optometrist *Other roles * ...

astronomer An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses their studies on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. They observe astronomical objects such as stars, planets, moons, comets and galaxies – in either o ...

, and typefounder. Wilson's typeface was used in 1756–1758 for a renowned edition of

Homer Homer (; grc, Ὅμηρος , ''Hómēros'') (born ) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the '' Iliad'' and the '' Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of ...

's epics (the

Iliad The ''Iliad'' (; grc, Ἰλιάς, Iliás, ; "a poem about Ilium") is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the '' Odys ...

and the

Odyssey The ''Odyssey'' (; grc, Ὀδύσσεια, Odýsseia, ) is one of two major Ancient Greek literature, ancient Greek Epic poetry, epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by moder ...

), printed by Robert Foulis and Andrew Foulis of the Foulis Publishing House and printers to the

University of Glasgow , image = UofG Coat of Arms.png , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of arms Flag , latin_name = Universitas Glasguensis , motto = la, Via, Veritas, Vita , ...

. The characters previously included in Junicode font, since version 1.000, moved into a separate font.

Origins and uses

The Junicode font was developed especially for medievalists, due to the need for a font to cover the large number of special characters and ligatures used in medieval

manuscript A manuscript (abbreviated MS for singular and MSS for plural) was, traditionally, any document written by hand – or, once practical typewriters became available, typewritten – as opposed to mechanically printed or reproduced ...

s. The font has complete support for the

Medieval Unicode Font Initiative In digital typography, the Medieval Unicode Font Initiative (MUFI) is a project which aims to coordinate the encoding and display of special characters in medieval texts written in the Latin alphabet, which are not encoded as part of Unicode. ...

version 4.0 in the regular and italic faces. Despite the specialization of Junicode for the needs of medievalists, the font is quite complete and supports a large number of Unicode characters. In the regular style, over 3000 characters are available. This makes Junicode useful for a wide range of languages that utilize the

Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and the ...

, including scholarly texts and publications that require special

diacritics A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacriti ...

not traditionally found in conventional fonts. It exists in regular, italic, bold and bold italic styles, with the regular style having the largest character set. Regular and bold styles have

and all styles have

swash Swash, or forewash in geography, is a turbulent layer of water that washes up on the beach after an incoming wave has broken. The swash action can move beach materials up and down the beach, which results in the cross-shore sediment exchange. ...

alternates, although not a complete set of italic swash capitals. Junicode has a very wide linespacing in many applications due to its numerous tall characters with stacked diacritics.

Availability and development

Junicode is free and

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...

software licensed under the

, and is released in the

TrueType TrueType is an outline font standard developed by Apple in the late 1980s as a competitor to Adobe's Type 1 fonts used in PostScript. It has become the most common format for fonts on the classic Mac OS, macOS, and Microsoft Windows operating ...

format, which is used on most

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ef ...

s. Additionally, specific packages for Junicode are available for open source systems such as

Debian Debian (), also known as Debian GNU/Linux, is a Linux distribution composed of free and open-source software, developed by the community-supported Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock on August 16, 1993. The first version of De ...

Ubuntu Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed mostly of free and open-source software. Ubuntu is officially released in three editions: '' Desktop'', '' Server'', and ''Core'' for Internet of things devices and robots. All th ...

, and

FreeBSD FreeBSD is a free and open-source Unix-like operating system descended from the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), which was based on Research Unix. The first version of FreeBSD was released in 1993. In 2005, FreeBSD was the most popular ...

. The Junicode font is developed in the FontForge typeface editing program. The font includes TrueType hinting, generated by the ttfautohint program.

Notes

External links

Junicode 2 websiteJunicode 1 websitePeter S. Baker
University of Virginia staff page
MUFI font pageUbuntu Junicode packageDebian Junicode font packageFreeBSD port of Junicode font
{{free and open-source typography Old style serif typefaces Free software Unicode typefaces Typefaces and fonts introduced in 2001 Typefaces with text figures IPA typefaces

Design

Origins and uses

Availability and development

See also

Notes

External links